Published: Sunday, August 31, 2014 at 05:32 PM.

August 25, 1952, was a big day for Eglin Air Force Base.

Employing the help of the cutting-edge drone squadron at Duke Field, the Air Force was testing out their leading fighter jets, pitting them against each other to see which one performed best at shooting down a B-17 drone.

That morning, a crew loaded up in a B-17 serving as the chaser plane that would direct the drone out over the Gulf of Mexico.

It was a special test, and the drone group’s commander, Lt. Col. William McWhorter, and some of the unit’s top brass loaded up in the nose of the B-17 to observe it.

The drones and their entourage — the chaser plane and a second B-17 that rode alongside it as a back-up chaser — took off from Duke Field, soaring up to about 14,000 feet where they cruised along at the tops of the clouds.

Robert Gallavan, one of the more seasoned drone pilots in the group, rode in the back-up B-17. The two manned B-17s flew in close formation.

“I could have leaned out and touched it,” re-called Gallavan, now 89 and living in Bluewater Bay.

There they waited for the F-86Ds, unique single-seater aircraft with only room for the pilot on board.

A few of the jets swooped in and made passes before the one armed with the missiles broke off, coming in for the final shot at the target drone, which was flying about a mile or two ahead of the manned B-17s.

Gallavan remembers seeing the F-86 fighter approach and the screen in front of him lighting up, indicating the jet was firing.

But, he was confused. It wasn’t locked in on the drone, instead aiming towards them.

“I’m sitting there looking at it and thinking ‘why are they firing now?’ I was just amazed.”

He saw the rockets penetrate the left side of the other B-17 and come out through the nose.

“Then it was just a big blob of airplane coming apart,” he said. “The next 12 missiles went right on through.”

He was still looking at the airplane when he saw the escape hatch pop open and two technicians come tumbling out of the back with parachutes, but he knew there was no way McWhorter or any of his buddies flying in the nose had gotten out alive.

“It disintegrated,” he said.

By nightfall, despite a helicopter search, the two airmen who had bailed out hadn’t been found. Before calling off the search after sunset, the helicopter dropped an inflatable life boat into the water.

It landed not too far from one of the airmen and he made his way to it and climbed aboard. Not long after, the boat bumped into the other airman, who had been bobbing along in the dark.

At sunrise, it didn’t take long for search planes to discover the men, who had been missing for almost 24 hours.

Back then, testing new aircraft was a more dangerous, and sometimes more fatal, mission than today when computerized simulators can ensure utmost safety before a pilot even enters the sky. Pilots or crew members sometimes did not make it.

Even for a community accustomed to these sorts of accidents, the crash that day that ended six lives was especially grim and tragic.

“This was a massive screw up,” Gal-lavan said recently, recalling the event near its 62nd anniversary, which fell last week.

He remembered feeling dejected, the worst when he had to go back to Shalimar where most of the group lived and face the wives and children of the men who had been killed.

Last week, he made a stop by a modest memorial at Duke Field that lists the names of all those who were killed that day. Many of the roads at Duke are also named after them.

“In all those years, this was our only fatality,” he said. “It was terrible.”

Employing the help of the cutting-edge drone squadron at Duke Field, the Air Force was testing out their leading fighter jets, pitting them against each other to see which one performed best at shooting down a B-17 drone.

That morning, a crew loaded up in a B-17 serving as the chaser plane that would direct the drone out over the Gulf of Mexico.

It was a special test, and the drone group’s commander, Lt. Col. William McWhorter, and some of the unit’s top brass loaded up in the nose of the B-17 to observe it.

The drones and their entourage — the chaser plane and a second B-17 that rode alongside it as a back-up chaser — took off from Duke Field, soaring up to about 14,000 feet where they cruised along at the tops of the clouds.

Robert Gallavan, one of the more seasoned drone pilots in the group, rode in the back-up B-17. The two manned B-17s flew in close formation.

“I could have leaned out and touched it,” re-called Gallavan, now 89 and living in Bluewater Bay.

There they waited for the F-86Ds, unique single-seater aircraft with only room for the pilot on board.

A few of the jets swooped in and made passes before the one armed with the missiles broke off, coming in for the final shot at the target drone, which was flying about a mile or two ahead of the manned B-17s.

Gallavan remembers seeing the F-86 fighter approach and the screen in front of him lighting up, indicating the jet was firing.

But, he was confused. It wasn’t locked in on the drone, instead aiming towards them.

“I’m sitting there looking at it and thinking ‘why are they firing now?’ I was just amazed.”

He saw the rockets penetrate the left side of the other B-17 and come out through the nose.

“Then it was just a big blob of airplane coming apart,” he said. “The next 12 missiles went right on through.”

He was still looking at the airplane when he saw the escape hatch pop open and two technicians come tumbling out of the back with parachutes, but he knew there was no way McWhorter or any of his buddies flying in the nose had gotten out alive.

“It disintegrated,” he said.

By nightfall, despite a helicopter search, the two airmen who had bailed out hadn’t been found. Before calling off the search after sunset, the helicopter dropped an inflatable life boat into the water.

It landed not too far from one of the airmen and he made his way to it and climbed aboard. Not long after, the boat bumped into the other airman, who had been bobbing along in the dark.

At sunrise, it didn’t take long for search planes to discover the men, who had been missing for almost 24 hours.

Back then, testing new aircraft was a more dangerous, and sometimes more fatal, mission than today when computerized simulators can ensure utmost safety before a pilot even enters the sky. Pilots or crew members sometimes did not make it.

Even for a community accustomed to these sorts of accidents, the crash that day that ended six lives was especially grim and tragic.

“This was a massive screw up,” Gal-lavan said recently, recalling the event near its 62nd anniversary, which fell last week.

He remembered feeling dejected, the worst when he had to go back to Shalimar where most of the group lived and face the wives and children of the men who had been killed.

Last week, he made a stop by a modest memorial at Duke Field that lists the names of all those who were killed that day. Many of the roads at Duke are also named after them.

“In all those years, this was our only fatality,” he said. “It was terrible.”